


Believe Hard Enough -- A Kastle Valetine's Day Drabble

by KastleInTheSky



Category: Daredevil (TV)
Genre: Dancing, Drabble, Dream Sequence, Dreaming, F/M, Old Movies, One Shot, Valentine's Day
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-10
Updated: 2017-02-10
Packaged: 2018-09-23 05:51:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,415
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9643349
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KastleInTheSky/pseuds/KastleInTheSky
Summary: Karen experiences her first Valentine's Day mostly alone in Hell's Kitchen.





	

She wasn't bitter. Really, she wasn't. She even spackled up the bullet holes in the dry wall with little hearts.

 

What Karen could see now, if anything, was that she was certainly a Valentine's Day spectacle of the other variety - makeup glowing from the day's oil on her face, a t-shirt from an old boyfriend with holes in one armpit, and emptying cartons of Chinese food from Happy Family piling up on her coffee table. The only man she'd spoken to this evening was Henry.

 

"Miss Karen," he began concerned, when she opened the door in this evening's garb to retrieve her feast.

 

"Home?"

 

Karen pulled out two crumpled twenty dollar bills out of her purse and handed them over, a half-hearted smile on her lips left stained there all day, and she took her bags.

 

"Home," she sighed as she pulled the door closed.

 

When she thought about it, she was probably just jaded.

 

 

Karen loved Old Hollywood, loved all the Old Hollywood actresses. Bette Davis, Audrey, of course. Karen dressed as Kathy Selden three years in a row, from when she was five to eight. Only the parents could recognize her, only from the stinging yellow raincoat.

 

More than anyone, she loved Natalie Wood. Ugh, she LOVED Natalie Wood, loved her in the way one enthralls themselves with someone the exact opposite of themselves. Karen was taken by the dark and dancing flicks of mahogany in her hair and the mirroring color of her perfectly rounded eyes. Karen was jealous of the swirling vanilla and caramel in her skin. Karen's mother would have certainly smacked over the head a few times if she was caught dressing like Natalie did in Gypsy. Karen used to dream about finding an occasion to wear something like the sequined numbers from the movie when she came to New York.

 

Karen would have other dreams as well, most that mirrored the time-honored romanticism of New York she got from movies. She loved the idea of dancing on the cobblestone streets, a candlelight dinner in a run-down and family-owned Italian restaurant. 

 

Karen was five minutes from the end of it this evening in her living room. She looked down at herself before taking a large swing of red wine from the bottle.

 

Jaded may not have been the word either.

 

The movie ended, as did the two after it. Karen had fallen asleep to what she recalls as Tony somewhere on the fire escapes, and as it sometimes would, the sounds from the TV began to melt together with her oncoming sleep. Most nights, of course, she had nightmares. Perhaps it was this purposeful focus on nostalgia that swayed her subconscious to believe otherwise. 

 

_Although she began to imagine herself twirling and dancing around in long, fluffy dresses in bright pastel colors, along with the bellowing of a big band,_ _the sleep took her and_ _the image became something else. She stopped dancing, the colors fading from vibrant reds and purples to wet charcoal._ _She'd come to a complete stop on a rooftop. From somewhere beyond, she could here the faint sounds of_ _music playing and a old man singing wafting up from a side street. She didn't know where she was, exactly, but from the adjacent rooftops and imaginary view, she could tell she was somewhere in Hells Kitchen. She turned over her shoulder to see she was just off the water. Immediately drawn to the sound of the lightly crashing waves on the wooden dock, she imagined herself approaching the West end of the rooftop, and the sound of the music grew stronger. She could see it as she gazed over the edge - a series of cafe tables garnished with red umbrellas, each with a happy, smiling couple to compliment. The women_ _dressed in lavish dresses, the men_ _perfectly tailored suit pants and button-up shirts. It made sense to her somehow even though from the rooftop she felts a sharp but airy wind chilling the skin on her arms and legs. An old gentlemen_ _played the piano_ _and sang, a song that sounded fuzzy to her now, but grew more familiar as she listened. She watched the old man, who seemed to look up at her more and more as she watched him play. His smile was grand and wrinkled, and she hadn't realized she'd begun to smile back him. As the words he sang became clearer in her head, she hadn't realized she'd begun to sing along with him either._

 

_"Hold my hand and we're halfway there... Hold my hand and I'll take you there..."_

 

_A noise distracted her from off the side of the building. She recognized it as the sound of another male voice quietly singing the same song along with her. Hurriedly, she scattered off the the sing to catch a glimpse of where the voice was coming from. She squinted, and she could barely make out the shape of a tall, broad shadow ascending to her from up the fire escape._

 

_"Somehow..."_

 

_He sang as Karen listened to his apparently large and heavy boots slamming against the metal. The shape of him materialized with every step - he was dark. The images of black hair and vanilla caramel skin came to her more clearly._

 

_"Someday..."_

 

_Karen found herself running back to the edge of the rooftop facing the crowd. The piano still played, and the old man still gawked up at her, and as her eyes scanned the rest of the scene, she saw that the couples at the cafe tables stared up too. From behind her, she heard the footsteps of the man heave over the edge of the roof. She turned to him, a tall, dark shadow man her mind couldn't corporealize completely. He no longer spoke, or sung, but he watched her as he slowly trudged towards her. He wasn't wearing suit pants like the others; his clothes looked heavy like his shoes, wet. She had just noticed that she was still only wearing the large, hole-ridden t-shirt. Embarrassed, she retreated, covering her legs with her bare arms, but the man ran towards her, holding her arms firmly in his cold hands. There were no details in his face, except the warmth of his skin, but she could sense he was smiling, and she became entranced. The shadow lowered his hands to hers, pulling her into formation for a dance. Karen complied._

 

_The old man's piano played the same tune, and Karen and the shadow glided together across the rooftop. Karen's arm slept over the man's shoulder, over his heavy leather coat, with her opposite hand intertwined with his calloused one. They danced and danced, and Karen and the man began to laugh happily in their inappropriate dancing clothes. Though his face never became apparent, Karen realized she knew this man, and though his presence was unexpected, the soreness in her cheeks as she smiled and the tingling warmth saturating over her told her he was welcomed. She thought to speak to him. As she tried, only an exasperated breath fell out from between her lips, and the man smiled widely at her._

 

_The old man played his song repeatedly, and the shadow began to sing to her again._

 

_"Somehow..."_

 

_He drew his face closer to hers. The tip of his beaten nose caressed hers, the color of the two mingling. Karen could smell the metallic scent of blood._

 

_"Someday..."_

 

_Karen's eye's focused on him. His face was clear._

 

_"Some..."_

 

_Karen only just recognized the last voice to sing as her own._

 

Karen awoke seamlessly, as if she'd rested for an eternity. The apartment was filled with the bright black light of the TV being on with no activity. Her body stirred, recognizing itself as awake and stretching to regain human form. 

 

She sat up and looked at the clock. A little before 3 in the morning. Sitting up, she stretched her arms widely again. The images of her dream colored her memory, but what could she do. Karen rose, at least to turn off the television and wipe the old makeup away from her face.

 

She'd just reached the cable box, just lifted her hand to press it.

 

When she heard a grunt from outside on her fire escape.

 

Karen knew she should've been more startled. Startled was far too weak a word, she knew. Karen should have been terrified. Inexplicably, she glided towards the window, and she could see shadow writhing around in the slit of open window. 


End file.
